Quotes and Aphorisms
"One could typify the Democrat and Republican versions
of Statism as 'Maternalism' vs 'Paternalism'. That's
why I prefer being a Libertarian. We are neither. We
prefer being Adults who are not dependent on ma or pa."
- DMA 20170608
"Confucious say: When climbing out of hole, be cautious
because you are at right height for someone to kick in
teeth" - DMA 20170603
"If you kick a dinosaur in the balls and if you are too big
or too agile for it to eat you... it evolves." - DMA 20140314
"Problems are just things on which you can get rich by
providing a solution." - DMA 20150221
"When you are up to your ears in alligators, turn them
into belts and shoes, sell them at a high price on the
black market, and then hire someone else to drain the
swamp for you." - DMA 20141126
"Denying money to the State is like denying heroin to
an addict." - DMA 20141116
"There is more to life than minimizing radiation exposure."
- Al Globus
Orbital Space Settlements
20140900
"I have words and I know how to use them." - DMA 20140921
"After many years of experience with computer systems, I have
come to the conclusion that programming depends on only four
numbers: zero, one, many and too many. - DMA 20140625
"I'm a weed. I grow anywhere." - DMA 20140630
"I want to die on Mars. Just not on impact." - Elon Musk 20120920
"I don't believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy or the government"
- DMA 20140907
"Let's party like it's 1773!" - Sarah Palin ties together 1773
Boston Tea Party with 2010
Tea Party. 20101021
"Libertarians are out to un-rule the World." - DMA 20100704
"I do not intend to be a road kill on the - DMA 20101205
information super highway"
"I think the United States is the greatest country that's ever
existed on earth. And I think that it is difficult to argue on
objective grounds that it is not. I think the facts really point
in that direction. It's the greatest force for good of any
country that's ever been. I think it would be a mistake to say
the United States is perfect; it certainly is not. But when
historians look at these things on balance and measure the good
with the bad -- and I think if you do that on a rational basis
and make a fair assessment -- I think it's hard to say that
there is anything better. I wasn't born in America - but I got
here as fast as I could."
- Elon Musk, TCSDaily,
From Paypal to Outerspace
20080616
"God doesn't play with dice: God *is* a set of dice."
- DMA 20080927
"Government is the Opiate of the Liberal." - DMA 20080627
"The future holds hells and heavens beyond imagining."
- DMA 20080430
"Speciation happens." - DMA 20080429
"The intelligence of a committee asymptotically
approaches zero as n gets large" - DMA 20091129
"Q: What is the difference between a Democrat and a Republican?
A: One has their head in the sand. The other keeps it in their
arse." - DMA 20070421
"Space Voyageurs, not Voyeurs." - DMA 20070315
"If you deal with assholes, all you get is shit." - Thoughts on ISG report
and 'engaging' with Syria
and Iran. DMA 20061209
"Sir: We congratulate the American people upon your re-election by
a large majority." - Karl Marx letter
to Abe Lincoln,
November 1864
"A simple way to take measure of a country is to look
at how many want in and how many want out." - Tony Blair,
alleged reply
about his support
of the US. 2006
"So Jesus and Moses walk into a bar. They take a moment to
look around. After a moment they look at each other and
breathe a sigh of relief. Moses looks at Jesus and says,
Thank God that Mohammad isn't here. This joke could have
led to riots." - Anonymous in a comment thread on
on Heliocentric is the hardest
word, publisehd in Samizdata,
20060923.
"You get more of anything you pay for." - Alan J Garfield, 1971
(DMA's CMU room mate)
"Eight hundred life spans can bridge more
than 50,000 years. But of these 800 people, 650 spent their
lives in caves or worse; only the last 70 had any truly
effective means of communicating with one another, only the last
6 ever saw a printed word or had any real means of measuring heat
or cold, only the last 4 could measure time with any precision;
only the last 2 used an electric motor; and the vast majority of
the items that make up our material world were developed within
the lifespan of the eight-hundredth person." - NASA Tech Report
circa 1967
"In the serious times in which we live, it is important for all
of us, Of all faiths, to recognize these four deep religious
truths:
1. Muslims do not recognize Jews as God's chosen people.
2. Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
3. Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the Leader
of the Christian World.
4. Baptists do not recognize each other at Hooters."
- Email to Samizdata
editors, 20060922
"Republicans and Democrats are like a criminal gang which has
fallen out over how to spend the stolen money." - DMA 20060911
"The best way to deal with a bureaucracy is with an upraised
finger." - DMA 20060709
"How about a collective term for libertarians?
Perhaps a 'disagreement of libertarians'?" - DMA 20060708
"Government is like a pile of shit. The bigger you make it,
the more flies you attract," - DMA 20060708
"Liberty isn't given. It's taken." - DMA 20060621
"Linux isn't my passion. It's just the best damn
screwdriver I've ever owned." - DMA 20060624
"Nanotechnologists do it with atomic balls." - DMA 20060629
"I have a real problem with the state of prisoners at
Guantanamo: they are still breathing." - DMA 20060604
"God made men equal, and Smith and Wesson make damn
sure it stays that way." - unknown
"Government isn't the solution: It's the Enemy." - DMA 20051018
"Few things are more dangerous and likely to end
in evil circumstance than juxtaposition of the
desire and the power to 'do good'." - DMA 20060217
"The notion that you can somehow defeat violence by
submitting to it is simply a flight from fact. As I
have said, it is only possible to people who have
money and guns between themselves and reality." - George Orwell, October 1941
"To converse at the distance of the Indes by means
of sympathetic contrivances may be as natural to future
times as to us is a literary correspondence." - Joseph Glanvill, 1661
"When the German Kaiser asked in 1912 what the quarter of
a million Swiss militiamen would do if invaded by a half
million German soldiers, a Swiss replied: "Shoot twice
and go home." - source unknown
"If you run into a brick wall, get a bazooka." - DMA 20040831
"Sheep are slow and tasty, and therefore must remain constantly
alert." - Bruce Schneier, "Beyond Fear"
"We americans, we're a simple people...
but piss us off, and we'll bomb your cities." - Robin Williams,
"Good Morning Vietnam"
"There is no such thing as a Class. There are only individuals
with temporarily aligned self-interests. - DMA 20050322
"The State is not my friend. My friends are competent." - DMA 20040927
"When in doubt, do it. It's much easier to apologize
than to get permission." - Admiral Grace Murray Hopper
"I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've
always worked for me." - Hunter S. Thompson
"We should not be building surveillance technology into
standards. Law enforcement was not supposed to be easy.
Where it is easy, it's called a police state." - Jeff Schiller
"It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies
that could someday facilitate a police state." - Bruce Schneier
"You were given the choice between war and dishonor.
You chose dishonor, and you will have war." - Winston Churchill reply
to Neville Chamberlain's
claim of "peace in our time"
"I sleep like a baby, too. Every two hours I wake
up screaming!" - Colin Powell sometime between
2001-2004, taken from some
earlier unknown source.
"I find it interesting when folks say we're softening
them up. We're not softening them up, we're killing
them." - USAF General Moseley about
Republican Guard divisions
outside of Baghdad.
"Coalition Forces Air
Component Command Briefing
April 5, 2003"
"Where liberty is, there is my country" - Benjamin Franklin
"Those who do not have swords may still die upon them."
- JRR Tolkien, "The Two Towers"
"If this makes any difference to you, they're not
gay in the sense that we usually think of it,"
Eliot explains. "They're het, but they're
pirates. They'll go after anything that's warm
and concave." - Neal Stephenson, "Snow Crash"
"An infallible method of conciliating a tiger is to allow oneself to be
devoured." - Konrad Adenauer
"University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small."
- C. P. Snow
"The Wahabbi's are against everything I stand for:
Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll." - DMA 20040323
"There once was a man named Osama,
Who suffered a serious trauma
When his father said, "Son,
I screw camels for fun,
And you really resemble your mama." - Andrew Sullivan 20011011
"Look, when you have seen one Earth, you have seen them all"
- Harrison Schmidt to
Gene Cernan, Apollo 17
Dec 1972, after being
told to look at the Earth
"It would seem that evil retreats when forcibly confronted."
- Yarnek of Excalbia,
"The Savage Curtain",
stardate 5906.5
"Good is better'n evil cause it's nicer." - Mammy Yokum, L'il Abner
cartoon strip, 1960's
"We can't defend an open democratic society of 285 million
people. The only way we can protect Americans is to kill
those who would kill them." - Gen. John M. Keane,
US Army 2nd in command
addressing 101st Airborne
in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
20020525
"I believe that forgiving them is God's function. Our job is
simply to arrange the meeting." - General Norman Schwartzkopf
reply to interview question,
is there room for forgiveness
towards those who aided and
abetted the 9/11 terrorists.
2002/02
"We Americans, we're a simple people... but piss us off, and we'll bomb
your cities." - Robin Williams in
Good Morning Vietnam
"But the difference between giving and being taxed is hardly
subtle; it's the difference between an act of love and rape."
- George F. Smith
Etherzone, Judgement Day in
Massachusetts, 20020905
"There is not a man in the country that can't make a
living for himself and family. But he can't make a
living for them *and* his government, too, the way
his government is living. What the government has
got to do is live as cheap as the people." - The Best of Will Rogers
"No matter how many freedoms are sacrificed on the alter of "injustice" we
will still have injustice - but we will not have Liberty."
- DMA, Samizdata 20030112
"You cannot turn a butcher into a folk hero in less than a generation"
- DMA, Samizdata 20031206
"The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the
Christian Religion." - George Washington
"Marxist Law of Distribution of Wealth:
Shortages will be divided equally among the peasants."
- Unix fortune cookie,
Main phrase in Pogo,
by Walt Kelly
"Sharon should ship Arafat to Europe, where there is much official sympathy
for him. Arafat would like today's France, where he could place his phone
calls by the light of burning synagogues." - George Will 20020402
"We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more
than they hate us," - Golda Meir, date unknown
"The few young al-Qaida members who killed thousands of Americans doubtless
thought they were acting ethically because they believed policies
and actions of the U.S. government had caused the deaths and misery of
any innocents. And retrospection suggests that even decisions of
democratic governments, such as terror bombings aimed at German and Japanese
civilians in World War II, were hardly ethical."
- Paul Erlich, limits to growth
asshole. Remember this quote
the next time you see him
cited in Scientific American.
2002/02
"Who *hasn't* hacked NASA?" - anonmyous cracker,
Linux and Main, 20020810
"We must indeed all hang together, or assuredly,
we shall all hang separately." - Benjamin Franklin
"It appears to be a discovery of great importance, and what
may probably give a new term to human affairs.
...five thousand balloons capable of raising two men
each would not cost more than five ships of the line....
And where is the Prince who can afford to so cover his country
with troops for its defense, as that ten thousand men descending
from the clouds, might not in many places do an infinite deal of
mischief, before a force could be brought together to repel them?"
- Benjamin Franklin,
Letter to a friend after
seeing Montgolier Bros
first flight, 1783
"The rights you have are the rights given you by this Committee [the
House Un-American Activities Committee]. We will determine what rights
you have and what rights you have not got." - J. Parnell Thomas, during
the McCarthy Purges
"I knew one thing: as soon as anyone said you didn't need a gun, you'd
better take one along that worked." - Raymond Chandler
"May the scripts of a thousand kiddies reside in your servers"
- curse for a new age,
Dale Amon 20021016
"Always carry a short length of fibre-optic cable.
If you get lost, then you can drop it on the
ground, wait 10 minutes, and ask the backhoe
operator how to get back to civilization." - Mike Andrews 2004
"Free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny.
The once-chained people who's leaders at last lose their grip on
information will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the
free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse
has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware he who would
deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams him
self your master." - Unknown
"The [music] industry will take whatever steps it needs to protect itself
and protect its revenue streams," Heckler said. "It will not lose that
revenue stream, no matter what. [...] Sony is going to take aggressive
steps to stop this. We will develop technology that transcends the
individual user. We will firewall Napster at source - we will block it
at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will
block it at your [ISP]. We will firewall it at your PC."
- Steve Heckler, Sony VP,
discussing their strategy
for giving customers what
they (Sony) want. 20000800
"America: Love it or GIVE IT BACK!" - bumper sticker reported on a
Blackfoot Indian's pickup in
Tennessee, with multiple flag
decals. Glenn Reynolds 20011121
"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity."
- Robert A Heinlein
"A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved
from a simple system that worked." - John Gall,"Systemantics"
"To my knowledge, the only way you can die from marijuana is if a bale of
it falls upon you from a great height." - Michael Cloud 20020600
"You and I as individuals can, by borrowing, live beyond our means,
but only for a limited period of time. Why should we think that
collectively, as a nation, we are not bound by that same
limitation?" - Ronald Reagan
"America is far from perfect. It has blundered through arrogance,
selfishness, cynicism, and a great deal through ignorance. But
without America, the history of humanity in the 20th century
would have been infinitely more tragic." - Dominique Moisi, adjunct director
of the French Institute for
International Relations in Paris
SF GATE 20011216
"What George Washington did for us was to throw out the British, so that we
wouldn't have a fat, insensitive government running our country. Nice try
anyway, George." - D.J. on KSFO/KYA
"Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be
slaves." - Henry David Thoreau
"One only need start from the premise one is right and has the one
true take on truth and justice... and the millions of bodies follow
as a simple exercise for the reader." - DMA 20020621, in Libertarian
Alliance Forum
"Power corrupts; Powerpoint corrupts absolutely."
- Vint Cerf, date unknown
"There will be a shortage of virgins in heaven before we are done."
- DMA 20010917
"Asteroids are nature's way of saying 'grow or die'."
- DMA 20040226
"It might help if we ran the MBA's out of Washington."
- Admiral Grace Hopper
(inventor of the computer "bug")
"He was a wise man who originated the idea of gods."
- Euripedes 484-406BC
"He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself; and
if you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into you."
- Nietzche
"Good is better'n evil cause it's nicer." - Mammy Yokum, L'il Abner
cartoon strip, Al Capp.
"Privacy isn't given to you. It's something you take."
- DMA 19990527
"If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy."
- Phil Zimmermann
"Root. God. What is difference?" - Pitr, User Friendly
"Better a pauper in orbit than a billionaire on the ground."
- unknown 2001
"Gentlemen. I'm not going to rock the boat... I'SE GONNA SINK IT!"
- Putney Swope
"Oh this age! How tasteless and ill-bred it is."
- Gaius Valerius Catullus
"In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death
by slow starvation. The old principle: Who does not work shall not eat,
has been replaced by a new one: Who does not obey shall not eat."
- Leon Trotsky, 1937
"Being American isn't about obedience to the law. It's about freedom. The
next time someone tells you "It's the law!", ask them if they would have
obeyed the Fugitive Slave Act." - DMA 19990608
"The human psyche will not be the weakest link in the chain on a piloted
mission to Mars. On the contrary, it is likely to be the strongest."
- Robert Zubrin,
"The Case for Mars"
"Q: Which was what? What was the desired effect?
Q: Can you describe to us anecdotally what the --
Myers: The desired effect was to kill al Qaeda.
Q: What sort of results are you aware of? What
did your people on the ground see?
Myers: Dead al Qaeda. (Laughter.)" - General Myers, DOD News
Briefing 20011211
"Everyone has the right . . . to seek, receive and impart information and
ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
- Article 19 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights
(1948)
"Don't drop acid, take it pass-fail!" - Bryan Michael Wendt
(Unix fortune cookie)
Visitor: "That woman's arm is too long."
Matisse: "That is not a woman, sir, it's a painting."- Matisse
"The Libertarian Party, unlike other parties, is a party of
principle... You may not like what Libertarians believe, but at least
you know what it is they believe." - Ken Lanterman, Daily News
(Galveston, Texas),
July 10, 1996
"We've spent 25 years keeping Republican and Democratic politicians
honest. We plan to spend the next 25 years keeping them unemployed."
- Steve Dasbach, LP Chair, 1996
"Criminals today have guns. Soon they will have computers and other weapons
of mass destruction." - clueless remark by mass
murderer Janet Reno
"Any government will kill you if it feels threatened."
- "Partisan", S. Andrew Swann
"Government doesn't empower you. Freedom empowers you."
- Phil Gramm, 1994
SUBMARINE: "I intend to remain on the surface as long as possible."
ADMIRAL: "So do I."
- Intership communications between escorts
of Murmansk Convoy PQ17 after being notified
the Tirpitz might be loose: WWII, 1940's
"Ah, you know the type. They like to blame it all on the Jews or the
Blacks, 'cause if they couldn't, they'd have to wake up to the fact
that life's one big, scary, glorious, complex and ultimately unfathomable
crapshoot -- and the only reason THEY can't seem to keep up is they're
a bunch of misfits and losers." - an analysis of neo-Nazis
and such, Badger comics
"There is not a man in the country that can't make a living for himself and
family. But he can't make a living for them *and* his government, too,
the way his government is living. What the government has got to do is
live as cheap as the people." - The Best of Will Rogers
"There is something you must understand about the Soviet system. They have the
ability to concentrate all their efforts on a given design, and develop all
components simultaneously, but sometimes without proper testing. Then they end
up with a technological disaster like the Tu-144. In a technology race at
the time, that aircraft was two months ahead of the Concorde. Four Tu-144s
were built; two have crashed, and two are in museums. The Concorde has been
flying safely for over 10 years." - Victor Belenko, MiG-25
fighter pilot who defected in 1976
"Defense Electronics",
Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 100
"It's hard for me to believe that in the year 2000 I am walking
into court to defend my daughter against charges of witchcraft."
- Tim Blackbear, in
Tulsa World 10/28/2000
[daughter was expelled
from Oklahoma public school
and forbidden to wear
Wiccan symbols amid charges
that she had cast "spells"
on teachers]
"The SysAdmin touches as little software as possible, for having
once touched the code, he will thenceforth always have to touch it."
- D. Amon ~20051017
"Q: What do you call a government owned monitoring camera?
A: Target practice." - D. Amon 20010820
"When the woodpile is on fire, use the water bucket. The gascan may
not deliver the results you are planning on." - D. Amon 20010106
"According to figures from the Justice Department, the average
rapist serves only 5.2 years on jail, and the average murderer
serves only 8.6 years. By contrast, the average time served for
possession of LSD is 10.1 years, and many Americans are serving
mandatory minimum sentences of 20 to 25 years for possession or
sale of marijuana." - Steve Dasbach, LP Chair, 1997
"... so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those
who wish to tyrranize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent,
and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious
and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men."
- Voltarine de Cleyre
"It is error alone that needs government support; truth can stand by
itself." - Thomas Jefferson
"The Net interprets censorship as damange and routes around it."
- John Gilmore
"Censorship under whatever guise or excuse is the ultimate of evils
because no other evil can survive without it. It is thus found to be
advocated only by fools and those of evil intent." - D. Amon
"Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe
the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to
prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens,
from keeping their own arms..." - Samuel Adams
"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's
whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe.
Civilization is the process of setting man free from men. "
- Ayn Rand in
"The Fountainhead" (1943)
"Timothy McVeigh's answer to Waco was to murder more innocent people
than the Fed's did." - DMA 20010611
"100 YEARS AGO
The average life expectancy in the US was 47.
Only 14% of the homes had bath tubs.
Only 8 % had telephones.
Marijuana, heroin and morphine were available at drugstores."
- Dalton Roberts
"Q: What do you call 100 Drug Enforcement Agents at a nuclear test site?
A; An opportunity.
Q: What do you call 1000 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Agents
at a nuclear test site?
A: I'm not sure, but I'll be in church next Sunday to give thanks."
- DMA 20001105
"Always support your fellow travellers when they walk your path.
While you walk side by side, assist them, let them be your friend,
for only then will your explanation of their errors fall upon a
willing ear." - DMA 20020328
"The Liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world.
It is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush,
State of the Union,
20030128
"The suggestion that censorship of certain types of speech is reasonable
reminds me of an old story:
A fellow sidles up next to a woman at a bar and asks "would you
sleep with me for a million dollars?". She smiles and says "I'd
think about it". At which point he puts a tenner on the bar in
front of her and says "how about for this?" Incensed she replies,
"What do you think I am? Some kind of prostitute?" The man replies,
"That's been decided already. We're just haggling the price."
Allowing censorship on what we don't like makes us just like that
woman: we have already agreed to sell our liberty. There is only the
matter of the sale price to be settled. - Dale Amon
"A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring
one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their
own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the
mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good
government, and all that is necessary to close the circle of our
felicities." - Thomas Jefferson,
in his 1801 inaugural
address
"The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity;
the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of a
military spirit were buried in the cloister: a large portion of public and
private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion;
and the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes
who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity."
- Edward Gibbons, "The Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire"
"I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as
the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must
not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we
must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts,
in our labor and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from
wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they
will be happy. - Thomas Jefferson
"Lucas is the source of many of the components of the legendarily reliable
British automotive electrical systems. Professionals call the company "The
Prince of Darkness". Of course, if Lucas were to design and manufacture
nuclear weapons, World War III would never get off the ground. The British
don't like warm beer any more than the Americans do. The British drink warm
beer because they have Lucas refrigerators." - unattributed fortune
"I don't know how world war three will be fought, but world war four will
be fought with sticks and stones." - Albert Einstein.
"If I were to select a jack-booted group of fascists who are
perhaps as large a danger to American society as I could pick today,
I would pick BATF [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms]."
- U.S. Representative
John Dingell, 1980
"If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon
the Creation, I would have recommended something simpler."
- Alfonso the Wise, 13th
Century King of Castile,
Commenting on the
Almagest, by Ptolemy.
"The gods confound the man who first found out how to distinguish the hours!
Confound him, too, who in this place set up a sundial, to cut and hack
my day so wretchedly into small pieces!" - Plautus, 200 BC
"Americans have the will to resist because you have weapons.
If you don't have a gun, freedom of speech has no power."
- Yoshimi Ishikawa,
Japanese author, in the
LA Times 15 Oct 1992
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain
occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive. It will often be
exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all.
I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the
Atmosphere. - Thomas Jefferson,
letter to Abigail Adams,
1787
"Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness."
- Thomas Paine
"I believe, in judging my own music, that I'd be much more comfortable
performing on the same stage with Eric Clapton or Bonnie Raitt than
pretty much any of the artists being billed as country today."
- Merle Haggard
"...The Bill of Rights is a literal and absolute document. The First
Amendment doesn't say you have a right to speak out unless the
government has a 'compelling interest' in censoring the Internet. The
Second Amendment doesn't say you have the right to keep and bear arms
until some madman plants a bomb. The Fourth Amendment doesn't say you
have the right to be secure from search and seizure unless some FBI
agent thinks you fit the profile of a terrorist. The government has no
right to interfere with any of these freedoms under any circumstances."
- Harry Browne, 1996 USA
presidential candidate,
Libertarian Party
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government
of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?"
- Thomas Jefferson,
in his 1801 inaugural
address
"Under Capitalism, man exploits man. Under Communism it is the exact
opposite." - The Martian Race"
by Gregory Benford
"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from
oppression: for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that
will reach unto himself." - Thomas Paine
"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens
of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with
arms." - James Madison,
The Federalist Papers
"The state calls its own violence `law', but that of the individual `crime'"
- Max Stirner
"Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods."
- H.L. Mencken
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion,
butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance
accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give
orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem,
pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently,
die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
- Robert A. Heinlein
Time Enough for Love
"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty
when the government's purposes are beneficient... The greatest dangers
to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning
but without understanding." - Supreme Court Justice
Louis Brandeis
"The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of
limited resources that it is commonly employed only by small children and
great nations." - David Friedman
"Every Communist must grasp the truth, 'Political power grows out of
the barrel of a gun.'" - Mao Tse-tung, 1938,
inadvertently endorsing the
Second Amendment.
"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look
upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."
- Mohandas Gandhi
"False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for
one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because
it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils
except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of
such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined
to commit crimes." - Cesare Beccaria, as quoted
by Thomas Jefferson's
Commonplace book
"The bearing of arms is the essential medium through which the
individual asserts both his social power and his participation in
politics as a responsible moral being..."
- J.G.A. Pocock, describing
the beliefs of the founders
of the U.S.
"It will be of no avail to the people. .. if the laws be so voluminous
that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be
understood." - Federalist Papers
"We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it, than
to consume wealth without producing it." - George Bernard Shaw
(1856-1950)
"It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one tenth
part." - Benjamin Franklin
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be
properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton,
The Federalist Papers
at 184-188
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may
be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons
than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may
sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those
who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they
do so with the approval of their consciences." - C. S. Lewis
"If gun laws in fact worked, the sponsors of this type of legislation
should have no difficulty drawing upon long lists of examples of
criminal acts reduced by such legislation. That they cannot do so
after a century and a half of trying -- that they must sweep under the
rug the southern attempts at gun control in the 1870-1910 period, the
northeastern attempts in the 1920-1939 period, the attempts at both
Federal and State levels in 1965-1976 -- establishes the repeated,
complete and inevitable failure of gun laws to control serious crime.
- Senator Orrin Hatch,
in a 1982 Senate Report
"We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in
the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."
- George Orwell
"The collapse of the Berlin Wall and a dozen governments since has
reminded us there is a reason why we don't have a national air
transportation system." - US Repr. Rohrabacher
"When Freedom is outlawed, only Outlaws will have Freedom."
- Tom Robbins in
Still Life with Woodpecker
"Maybe Jesus was right when he said that the meek shall
inherit the earth -- but they inherit very small plots,
about six feet by three." - Lazarus Long
(Robert Hienlien)
"If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not
science; it is opinion." - Lazarus Long
(Robert Hienlien)
"Well, you know, no matter where you go, there you are."
- Buckaroo Banzai
"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I
want to achieve immortality through not dying. - Woody Allen
"It's like deja vu all over again." - Yogi Berra
"Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger." - Abbie Hoffman
"The truth? What the hell is the truth? We're born, we live and we
die. Everything else is just shades of opinion."
- Clem Steiner in
Bloodstone, Ch7 by
David Gemmell.
"Spacekind of the Earth Unite! You have nothing to lose but your gravity!"
- Dale Amon
"You ain't workin' on *my* starship..." - Dale Amon (1996)
"A civilization or species that fails to develop space travel
becomes extinct." - R.A.H.
"Hugging in a pressure suit doesn't really do much for anybody, either,
but I guess it's the thought that counts." - Buzz Aldrin/John Barnes,
"Encounter with Tiber"
"I think you don't grow up until you stop worrying about other people's
purposes or lack of them and find the purposes you believe in for
yourself." - Ender in "Xenocide" by
Orson Scott Card
"The conquest of space is facing two major problems: gravity and red tape.
We could have managed gravity." - Werner Von Braun
"...let me tell you rocket companies, how many profit dollars have you
put into pushing the state of the art out of the billions you've
gotten from NASA? I think the answer is close to zero... If you
stick to your old ways and undercapitalize on commercialization
approaches and then expect Uncle Sugar to underwrite you on risk
so you can then sell substandard vehicles commercially, you're
coming to the wrong place." - Dan Goldin
guest editorial
AW&ST Feb 26,1996
"Their name, Fedayeen Saddam, is a lie, because their
purpose is certainly not to make martyrs of themselves, but to
make martyrs of innocent Iraqis opposed to Saddam's rule. But
we will take them at their word, and if their wish is to die for
Saddam Hussein, they will be accommodated." - Donald Rumsfeld
DoD News Briefing
20030328 1315 EST
"It is useless for sheep to pass resolutions in favor of
vegetarianism while wolves remain of a different opinion."
- Rev William Ralph Ing
"I had decided that the first maxim of survival on Palomar Mountain
is that those who eat Oreos live to see the dawn."
- Richard Preston,
"First Light",
Pt 2 "The Shoemaker Comets".
"You are boldly going where no man knows what he is doing."
- Maarten Schmidt quoted in
"First Light" by
Richard Preston,
Pt 3 "The Gadgeteers".
"The Fruit Salad Effect (or When Abstraction Layers go Bad):
'This box has apples, oranges, pears and peaches in it. That's
too complex so we'll give the user fruit salad instead.'"
- D. Amon 20020924
"Two spiral galaxies walk into a pub and one of them goes up
to the barman:
"Two pints of lager, please."
"I'll serve you but not your friend"
"Why not?"
"He's barred."" - Tim Ash, New Scientist
p84 19970412
"A neutron walks into a bar. "I'd like a beer" he says.
The bartender promptly serves up a beer.
"How much will that be?" asks the neutron.
"For you?" replies the bartender,
"no charge"." - a random sig file
"Q: Why did the tachyon cross the road?
A: Because it was on the other side." - a Unix fortune cookie
"Margaret regarded him with skepticism. His face was still misshapen from
the cut and bruise on his cheek, and Margaret thought, here's an offer of
help from a man beaten up by a *sheep*." - The Memory Of Whiteness,
Kim Stanley Robinson
"'Damn, out of memory!' is not the thing you want to hear over the
aircraft intercom at 35,000 feet." - Alan Cox
"The man nearest an elephant is not necessarily the one
who knows what it looks like." - DMA 2001062
"Put down those Windows disks, Dave... -- HAL" - William Stearns sig,
linux kernel list
"Prostitution is a combination of sex and free enterprise. Which one are you
against?" - source unknown
"The severity of local laws is made milder by lack of necessity to
follow them thoroughly." - Russian saying
"If you're not in bed by ten, come home." - Paul Szauter
(CMU and SnS housemate), 1973
"F.S. Fitzgerald to Hemingway: 'Ernest, the rich are different from us.'
Hemingway: 'Yes. They have more money.'
- Fitzgerald and Hemingway
"Like a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
- Shakespeare
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." - Salvor Hardin
"Live Free or Die!" - New Hampshire State Motto
"Poverty is very time consuming." - DMA 20040317
"She died with her dreams on." - DMA 1986
"NASA is a waste of Space" - Dale Amon 20000415
"Government is a social disease." - D. Amon
"The ends define the middle." - D. Amon
"I knew a virgin... once." - D. Amon early 80's.
"A squirrel is a rat with good PR" - CMU Wean Hall 3rd flr loo
"That which does not kill me, makes me stronger"- Nietszche
"The easy road isn't any fun." - D. Amon
"Wings are a poor substitute for thrust." - Alan Anderson, SPD v1no400
"The meek have inherited the earth" - D. Amon, on the Internet
"A MIG at your six is better than no MIG at all"- Mary Shafer
"Better to have a small part of a big pie than
a large part of a small pie." - D. Amon
"The difference between an entrepreneur and a
con artist is the entrepreneur *intends*
to deliver". - D. Amon
"Rome wasn't interfaced in a day." - D. Amon 19960311
"SIAWOL - Space Is A Way Of Life" - D. Amon, paraphase :-)
"To Code is To Understand" - D. Amon 19960415
"The future isn't as far away as it used to be" - D. Amon 19960829
"I can do anything but I can't do everything." - DMA 19990701
"It makes me feel young to be wrong so often." - Mansur Salap in "Legacy"
by Greg Bear
"Just say no: let Nancy get her own stash." - D. Amon CMU sig 1984-89
"I have zero tolerence for fascist pigs." - D. Amon CMU sig 1984-89
"Conserve energy: burn IRS agents" - D. Amon CMU sig 1984-89
"40 years of space voyeurism is enough." - DMA 20010323
"Immortality is living one millenium at a time" - DMA 19991025
"I used to be a programmer. Then I got a company." - DMA 19980112
"It isn't who you know, it's who you get drunk with." - DMA 19990411
"A flag you can't desecrate isn't worth fighting for." - DMA 19990825
"Stupidity can overcome any level of robustness." - DMA 20000502
"The deadliest criminals in America call themselves
Drug Warriors." - DMA 20000602
"We come in Peace for All Ourselves" - a suggested slogan for the
first Artemis Moonbase
settlers. DMA 20000529
"Take small steps quickly." - Advice to chinese student
on C project in intro course
at QUB. DMA 19910621
"If you want to soar with the eagles you had better flap your
own wings because the only thing they carry with them is prey."
- D. Amon 19980121
"Health Nazi's can be hazardous to your Civil Liberties"
- D. Amon 20030622
"Show me an individual who is absolutely consistant and I'll bet they fail
the Turing test..." - D. Amon CMU sig 1984-89
"What difference is it to me whether a statist is Right or Left?
Pigs is Pigs." - D. Amon CMU sig 1984-89
"If God had meant man to be on the ground, He would have given him roots"
- D. Amon sig 1984-89
"DEA Agents climb step ladders to fellate planaria"
- D. Amon CMU sig 1984-89
"Work for a government? Why not consider getting an honest job?"
- D. Amon CMU sig 1984-89
"A Libertarian is a person who can't tell right from left"
- D. Amon CMU sig 1984-89
"Voting for Bush or Dukakis is like saying:
'Thank you Sir, May I have another!?'" - D. Amon CMU sig 1984-89
"In 1985, ~600 people died due to cocaine, ~4000 totals deaths
were recorded as drug related, ~5000 people drowned and
50000 people died in car accidents:
Just say no to swimming in automobiles." - D. Amon CMU sig 1984-89
"Welcome to the Land of the Fee and the Home of the Slave."
- DMA 19990626
"When in Lilliput it pays you to remember you aren't *really* a giant."
- DMA 20010215
"Irish roads seperate at whatever angle suits their fancy, then wind this
way and that as pleases them until they arrive somewhere and decide
to quit." - DMA 20010904
"There are some rules you must keep to if you chose to be a member of
a society. It is one thing to wish to change the society you exist
within; it is quite another to work to bring about the deaths of
fellow citizens while simultaneously partaking of its' liberties."
- DMA 20011210
"The 80/20 rule works in the arts:
If you haven't offended 20% of your audience,
you haven't taken it far enough." - DMA 19990714
"It takes brains to be a creator. Any moron
can be a Vishnu." - D. Amon 199610
"Q: How can you tell a government official is lying?
A: Its' mouth is open." - D.Amon 19961211
"The Prince gives as few orders as possible, for having once given an order
on a subject, he will henceforth always be required to rule on that subject"
- Machiavelli and Management
Assorted Commercials from the 1960's and 1970
"It's not *nice* to fool Mother Nature."
"Weebles wobble but they don't fall down."
"My wife. I think I'll keep her."
"Mothers are like that, yeah, they are!"
"Where's the beef?"
"Monaaaaaaaaa!!!!!"
"An engineer is someone who can build for a dollar what any damn fool can
build for ten." - Robert A. Hienlein
"Individual Liberty. Individual Responsibility."- Russell Means, LPNC88
"They were our pilots, it was our aircraft, the aircraft should not
have been on that runway and ... we accept full responsibility,"
- Cheong Choong Kong,
deputy chairman and
chief executive of
Singapore Airlines
20001103
"A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you are talking
real money." - purportedly said by
Sen. Everett Dirksen
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
Historical Review of
Pennsylvania, 1759
"We soon came to the conclusion that a careful reading of the press
could often produce results far superior to secret reports of agents."
- Markus Wolf,
East German spymaster
"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation,
that we can not be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is
the difference in having our arms in possession and under our
direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our
defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can
they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in
our own hands?" -Patrick Henry
"Communism doesn't make sense at all. Not for me. Cause it's complete
government control. The capitalist system is the best, cause we can barter,
we can go somewhere else. Communism is one big phone company."
- Lenny Bruce
"There are not five people out there who want to send arms to Iran. The
only way we want to give them arms is dropping them from the bay of a B-1
bomber." - South Dakota Governor William
Janklow on Iran/Contra deal
"Everyone {here in Northern Ireland} is so busy pissing in the swimming
pool that they've forgotten how to swim." - D. Amon
"The meek may inherit the Earth, but it's going to take some mean
sons of bitches to inherit the moon." - D. Amon
"When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is
not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about
space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere."
- Robert A. Heinlein
"There are two great products to come out of Berkeley: LSD and Unix. We
don't believe this to be a conincidence." - unknown
" ... we must not judge the society of the future by considering whether
or not we should like to live in it; the question is whether those who
have grown up in it will be happier than those who have grown up in our
society or those of the past." - Joseph Wood Krutch
"Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in
Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement.
An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they?
It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights--the 'right' to
education, the 'right' to health care, the 'right' to food and housing.
That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are
the rations of slavery--hay and a barn for human cattle. There's only
one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And
with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the
consequences." - PJ O'Rourke
"If there be a principle that ought not to be questioned within the United
States, it is that every man has a right to abolish an old government and
establish a new one. This principle is not only recorded in every public
archive, written in every American heart, and sealed with the blood of a host
of American martyrs, but is the only lawful tenure by which the United States
hold their existence as a nation." - James Madison 1751-1836
"The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone
who is able may have a gun." - Patrick Henry
"To disarm the people is the best and most effective way to
enslave them." - George Mason
"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And
let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no
virtue!" - Barry Goldwater (1964)
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at
the expense of everyone else." - Frederic Bastiat
"Mankind is at its best when it is most free. This will be clear
if we grasp the principle of liberty. We must recall that the basic
principle is freedom of choice, which saying many have on their
lips, but few in their mind." - Dante (1265-1321)
"Still, I guess the end justifies the memes."
- character Gillian Baskin
in David Brin's novel,
Heaven's Reach
"The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it."
- John Hay (1872)
"Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on
what to have for dinner." - James Bovard (1994)
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do
nothing." - Edmund Burke
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government
to gain ground." - Thomas Jefferson
"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of
Liberty." - Thomas Jefferson
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they
are free." - Goethe
"When the government's boot is on your throat, whether it is a left
boot or a right boot is of no consequence."
- Gary Lloyd
"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under."
- H.L. Mencken
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge
to rule. - H.L. Mencken
"It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or
religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own
folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to
secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression
on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend
beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they
are intended to serve." - Henry George
"Where morality is present, laws are unnecessary. Without morality,
laws are unenforceable." - Anonymous
"Liberty is not a means to a political end. It is itself the highest
political end." - Lord Acton
"The power to tax is the power to destroy."
- John Marshall
"[On ancient Athens]: In the end, more than freedom, they wanted
security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all --
security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not
to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom
they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens
ceased to be free and was never free again."
- Edward Gibbon
"Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his
own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and
no interference with their persons or property."
- Lysander Spooner
"In order to get power and retain it, it is necessary to love power;
but love of power is not connected with goodness but with qualities
that are the opposite of goodness, such as pride, cunning, and
cruelty." - Leo Tolstoy
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has
is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't
enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a
crime that it becomes impossible to live without breaking laws."
- Ayn Rand
"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude
greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in
peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick
the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may
posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
- Samuel Adams
"It is useless for sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism
while wolves remain of a different opinion."
- Rev William Ralph Inge
"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its
freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it
values more, it will lose that, too." - Somerset Maugham
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can
only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote
themselves largess out of the public treasury."
- Alexander Tytler
(Source perhaps invented, but
quote is nice whoever said it.)
"A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which
debt he proposes to pay off with your money."
- G. Gordon Liddy
"The United States is a nation of laws, badly written and randomly
enforced." - Frank Zappa
"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. When it dies there, no
constitution, no law, no court can save it."
- Justice Learned Hand
"It is sobering to reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a
reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating
the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for
independence." - Charles A. Beard
"A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves."
- Edward R. Murrow
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are
injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say
there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor
breaks my leg." - Thomas Jefferson (1781)
"The desire to rule is the mother of heresies."
- St. John Chrysostom
"Can our form of government, our system of justice, survive if one can
be denied a freedom because he might abuse it?"
- Harlon Carter
"It is not the responsibility of the government or the legal system to
protect a citizen from himself." - Justice Casey Percell
"No one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people
who wrote it wanted their government severely limited; the words "no"
and "not" employed in restraint of government power occur 24 times in
the first seven articles of the Constitution and 22 more times in the
Bill of Rights." - Edmund A. Opitz
"The government was set to protect man from criminals -- and the
Constitution was written to protect man from the government. The Bill
of Rights was not directed against private citizens, but against the
government -- as an explicit declaration that individual rights
supersede any public or social power."
- Ayn Rand
"The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the
taxidermist leaves the skin." - Mark Twain
"The budget should be balanced, the treasury refilled, public debt
reduced, the arrogance of officialdom tempered and controlled, and the
assistance to foreign lands curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt."
- Cicero
"What this country needs are more unemployed politicians."
- Edward Langley
"I believe that every individual is naturally entitled to do as he
pleases with himself and the fruits of his labor, so far as it in no
way interferes with any other men's rights."
- Abraham Lincoln
"Those who expect to reap the benefits of freedom, must, like men,
undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
- Thomas Paine
"Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.
- Harry Emerson Fosdick
"The state in which the rulers are the most reluctant to govern is
always the best and most quietly governed; and the state in which they
are the most eager, the worst." - Anonymous
"It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones."
- Calvin Coolidge
"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation
of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical."
- Thomas Jefferson
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."
- Voltaire
"The war for freedom will never really be won because the price of our
freedom is constant vigilance over ourselves and over our Government."
- Eleanor Roosevelt
"Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt."
- Herbert Hoover
"Give me liberty or give me death!" - Patrick Henry
"First they came for the Jews, but I did nothing because I'm not a Jew.
Then they came for the socialists, but I did nothing because I'm not a
socialist. Then they came for the Catholics, but I did nothing because
I'm not a Catholic. Finally, they came for me, but by then there was
no one left to help me." - Pastor Father Niemoller (1946)
"Government at its best is a necessary evil, and at its worst, an
intolerant one." - Thomas Paine
"There's never been a good government."
- Emma Goldman
"We must have government, but we must watch them like a hawk."
- Millicent Fenwick (1983)
"Useless laws weaken the necessary laws."
- Montesquieu
"A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only
a fool trusts either of them." - P. J. O'Rourke
"Government never furthered any enterprise but by the alacrity with
which it got out of its way." - Henry David Thoreau
"Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of
Congress. But I repeat myself." - Mark Twain
"There is no distinctly native American criminal class save Congress."
- Mark Twain
"Talk is cheap -- except when Congress does it."
- Cullen Hightower
"Don't take life too seriously.. you'll never get out of it alive"
- Bugs Bunny
"You cannot adopt politics as a profession and remain honest."
- Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
"[Political] offices are as acceptable here as elsewhere, and whenever
a man cast a longing eye on them, a rottenness begins in his conduct."
- Thomas Jefferson (1799)
"The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is
competence, because it's so rare." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1976)
"The most fundamental purpose of government is defense, not empire."
- Joseph Sobran (1995)
"Governments harangue about deficits to get more revenue so they can
spend more." - Allan H. Meltzer (1993)
"When important issues affecting the life of an individual are decided
by somebody else, it makes no difference to the individual whether
that somebody else is a king, a dictator, or society at large."
- James Taggart (1992)
"No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If
we're looking for the sources of our troubles, we shouldn't test
people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed,
and love of power." - P. J. O'Rourke (1992)
"Here's your enemy for this week, the government says. And some
gullible Americans click their heels and salute -- often without
knowing who or even where the enemy of the week is."
- Charley Reese (1998)
"The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what
color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only
cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the
most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one
another to deal with one another and help one another."
- Milton Friedman
"The best government is the one that charges you the least blackmail
for leaving you alone." - Thomas Rudmose-Brown (1996)
"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it
costs when it's free." - P.J. O'Rourke (1993)
"The Government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy
appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other."
- Ronald Reagan
"The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the
people at large or considered as individuals...It establishes some
rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no
majority has a right to deprive them of."
- Albert Gallatin (1789)
"To determine how long it will take to write and debug a program, take
your best estimate, multiply that by two, add one, and convert
to the next higher units." - The Briggs-Chase [and many
other variants] Law of Program
Development.
"The Constitution shall never be construed...to prevent the people of
the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own
arms." - Samuel Adams
"I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time
in which we live I am ready to worship it."
- Alexis De Toqueville
"I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every
form of tyranny over the mind of man."
- Thomas Jefferson (1800)
"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto. --
- Thomas Jefferson (1799)
"I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and
democracy -- but that could change." - Al Gore
"If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the
law." - Winston Churchill
"Tyranny is always better organized than freedom."
- Charles Peguy
"Liberty is the only thing you cannot have unless you are willing
to give it to others." - William Allen White
"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it."
- George Bernard Shaw
"Many politicians lay it down as a self-evident proposition that
no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom.
The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not
to go into the water till he had learned to swim."
- Macaulay
"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence - it is force! Like
fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master: never for a
moment should it be left to irresponsible action."
- George Washington
"The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the
Republican model of government, are justly considered as deeply,
perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of
the American people." - George Washington
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,
or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the government for a redress of grievances."
- US 1st Amendment
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state,
the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
- US 2nd Amendment
"No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without
the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be
prescribed by law." - US 3rd Amendment
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,
and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported
by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be
searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
- US 4th Amendment
"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous
crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in
cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in
actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be
subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb;
nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against
himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use,
without just compensation." - US 5th Amendment
"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a
speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district
wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have
been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and
cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him;
to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to
have the assistance of counsel for his defense."
- US 6th Amendment
"In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed
twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no
fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of
the United States, than according to the rules of the common law."
- US 7th Amendment
"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed,
nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." - US 8th Amendment
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be
construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
- US 9th Amendment
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states
respectively, or to the people." - US 10th Amendment
"Dealing with early boot time is a lot like wading through
a primeval swamp. It's murky, there are nasty ancient creatures
lurking under the water, and you've only got a stone axe to
fight back with." - DMA 20020407
"Perl is like the elephant and the blindmen. Some use the legs and think
it's a robust, simple and solid language. Some think it's a flexible language
able to get into syntactically unusual places and pick up difficult to
handle bits; others that it's a massive body that does everything.
Unfortuneatly most newcomers grab the long skinny bit trailing behind
and wonder why they get dumped on." - D. Amon 19960406
"If Diet Coke did not exist it would have been neccessary
to invent it." - Karl Lehenbauer
(date <= 2003)
"Scotty: Captain, we din' can reference it!
Kirk: Analysis, Mr. Spock?
Spock: Captain, it doesn't appear in the symbol table.
Kirk: Then it's of external origin?
Spock: Affirmative.
Kirk: Mr. Sulu, go to pass two.
Sulu: Aye aye, sir, going to pass two."
- /usr/games/fortune 20011014
"...very few phenomena can pull someone out of Deep Hack Mode,
with two noted exceptions: being struck by lightning, or worse,
your *computer* being struck by lightning." - Matt Welsh
(date unknown but < 2003)
"The appropriateness of a metaphor depends on the level of
abstraction one is discussing." - D. Amon 19970924
"If you think C++ is not overly complicated, just what is a
protected abstract virtual base class with a pure virtual private destructor,
and when was the last time you needed one?" - Tom Cargil, C++ Journal,
Fall 1990
"By the middle 1880's, practically all the roads except those in the
South, were of the present standard gauge. The southern roads were
still five feet between rails.
It was decided to change the gauge of all southern roads to standard,
in one day. This remarkable piece of work was carried out on a Sunday
in May of 1886. For weeks beforehand, shops had been busy pressing
wheels in on the axles to the new and narrower gauge, to have a supply
of rolling stock which could run on the new track as soon as it was ready.
Finally, on the day set, great numbers of gangs of track layers went to
work at dawn. Everywhere one rail was loosened, moved in three and
one-half inches, and spiked down in its new position. By dark, trains
from anywhere in the United States could operate over the tracks in the
South, and a free interchange of freight cars everywhere was possible."
-- Robert Henry, "Trains", 1957
"A great American Olympic wrestler was receiving last-minute advice
from his coach about the upcoming match with the Soviet Champion.
"This Russian guy is really good, very strong and quick. But I think
you can take him. Remember, though, like I've told you before, don't let
him get you in the Pretzel hold. With his strength you'd never get out."
The American leaps onto the mat, and within moments the two behemoths
are going crazy, struggling to get each other pinned. The American slowly
gains ground and appears that he might actually win on points alone, when, in
the blink of an eye, the Russian reverses him and whips him into the fatal
Pretzel hold.
The coach, off by the side, shakes his head in dismay, and sits down
on the bench with his head between his hands. All of a sudden, there's a
scream and the two wrestlers fly apart, the American regaining control and
pinning the Russian. After the match, in the dressing room, the coach
finally gets the winner alone. "Great job! But how the hell did you get out
of the Pretzel Hold? I thought it was over for sure!"
"Well, I did too. I was in the hold, about to be pinned, when I saw
this huge pair of testicles hanging right in front of my eyes. I figured
what the hell, so I stretched forward and bit them as hard as I could. Coach,
you just don't know your own strength 'til you've bitten your own balls!""
-- a Unix Fortune Cookie
"And 1.1.81 is officially BugFree(tm), so if you receive any bug-reports on it,
you know they are just evil lies." - Linus Torvalds
Linus.Torvalds@cs.helsinki.fi
"...and scantily clad females, of course. Who cares if it's below zero
outside" - Linus Torvalds
"As usual, this being a 1.3.x release, I haven't even compiled this
kernel yet. So if it works, you should be doubly impressed.
- Linus Torvalds, announcing
kernel 1.3.3 on the
linux-kernel mailing list
"How should I know if it works? That's what beta testers are for.
I only coded it." - Attributed to Linus Torvalds,
somewhere in a posting
"I'm an idiot.. At least this one [bug] took about 5 minutes to find.."
- Linus Torvalds in response
to a bug report
"I've run DOOM more in the last few days than I have the last few months.
I just love debugging ;-)" - Linus Torvalds
"If you want to travel around the world and be invited to speak at
a lot of different places, just write a Unix operating system."
- Linus Torvalds
"We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds."
- Linus Torvalds about the
superiority of Linux on
the Amterdam Linux Symposium
"When you say "I wrote a program that crashed Windows", people just stare at
you blankly and say "Hey, I got those with the system, *for free*"."
- Linus Torvalds
From the Compuguard days...
"If it (your system) is too complicated, then you don't really
understand the problem." - D. Amon, mid 70's
"Make it work, then make it pretty." - D. Amon, mid 70's
"The quality goes in or my name comes off." - D. Amon, mid 70's
"I never met a compiler I couldn't break." - D. Amon, mid 70's
"We have a secret weapon: No Choice!" - David M. Fisher, mid 70's
"I'd rather have a small part of something than
all of nothing." - D. Amon, mid 70's
"Never mistake motion for progress" - D. Amon, mid 70's
"Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set:
DC Divide and Conquer
DMPK Destroy Memory Protect Key
DO Divide and Overflow
EMPC Emulate Pocket Calculator
EPI Execute Programmer Immediately
EROS Erase Read Only Storage
EXCE Execute Customer Engineer
HCF Halt and Catch Fire
IBP Insert Bug and Proceed
INSQSW Insert into queue somewhere (for FINO queues [First in never out])
PBC Print and Break Chain
PDSK Punch Disk" - fortune cookie from the
70's.
"Castro dies and goes to heaven. When he gets there, St. Peter tells him
that he is not on the list and he doesn't belong in heaven so Castro must
go to hell instead.
So Castro goes to hell where Satan gives him a hearty welcome and tells
him to make himself at home.
Then Castro notices that he left his luggage in > heaven and tells Satan,
who says, "No problem, I'll send a couple of little devils to get your
stuff.
When the little devils get to heaven they find the gates are locked -
St. Peter is having lunch - and they start debating what to do.
Finally one comes up with the idea that they should go over the wall and
get the luggage.
As they are climbing the wall, two little angels see them, and one angel
says to the other, "Look at that! Castro has been in hell for ten minutes
and we're already getting refugees!" - Boris Kupershmidt
20020419
"Ever wondered about the origins of the term "bugs" as applied to computer
technology? U.S. Navy Capt. Grace Murray Hopper has firsthand explanation.
The 74-year-old captain, who is still on active duty, was a pioneer in
computer technology during World War II. At the C.W. Post Center of Long
Island University, Hopper told a group of Long Island public school adminis-
trators that the first computer "bug" was a real bug--a moth. At Harvard
one August night in 1945, Hopper and her associates were working on the
"granddaddy" of modern computers, the Mark I. "Things were going badly;
there was something wrong in one of the circuits of the long glass-enclosed
computer," she said. "Finally, someone located the trouble spot and, using
ordinary tweezers, removed the problem, a two-inch moth. From then on, when
anything went wrong with a computer, we said it had bugs in it." Hopper
said that when the veracity of her story was questioned recently, "I referred
them to my 1945 log book, now in the collection of the Naval Surface Weapons
Center, and they found the remains of that moth taped to the page in
question."" - Unix Fortune cookie
"My friends, I am here to tell you of the wonderous continent known as
Africa. Well we left New York drunk and early on the morning of
February 31. We were 15 days on the water, and 3 on the boat when we
finally arrived in Africa. Upon our arrival we immediately set up a
rigorous schedule: Up at 6:00, breakfast, and back in bed by 7:00.
Pretty soon we were back in bed by 6:30. Now Africa is full of big
game. The first day I shot two bucks. That was the biggest game we
had. Africa is primerally inhabited by Elks, Moose and Knights of
Pithiests. The elks live up in the mountains and come down once a
year for their annual conventions. And you should see them gathered
around the water hole, which they leave immediately when they discover
it's full of water. They weren't looking for a water hole. They were
looking for an alck hole.
One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas, how he got in my pajamas,
I don't know. Then we tried to remove the tusks. That's a tough word
to say, tusks. As I said we tried to remove the tusks, but they were
imbedded so firmly we couldn't get them out. But in Alabama the
Tuscaloosa, but that is totally irrelephant to what I was saying.
We took some pictures of the native girls, but they weren't developed.
So we're going back in a few years..." - Groucho Marx
|
If you see an Afghan rebel | You'll work harder with a gun in your back
That the Moscow bullets missed | For a bowl of rice a day
Ask him what he thinks | Slave for soldiers till you starve
Of voting Communist | Then your head is skewered on a stake
Ask the Dalai Lama | Now you can go where people are One
In the hills of Tibet | Now you can go where they get things done
How many monks | It's a holiday in Cambodia
Did the Chinese get? | Where you'll do what you're told
- The Clash | - The Dead Kennedy's
| "Holiday in Cambodia"
|
"Paranoia strikes deep,
Into your life it will creep.
It starts when you're always afraid,
To step out of line,
Or the man come,
And take you away."
- Buffalo Springfield
"Find the cost of freedom
Buried in the ground.
Mother Earth will swallow you
Lay your body down."
- CSN&Y
We note our place with book markers,
That measure what we've lost.
- Simon and Garfunkel